Sunday, April 1, 2012

I had to throw that last one in there because the Kansas Jayhawks pulled off the upset last night and it's pretty much been insanity here in the prairie hood. But back to Mapril. As you recall, the inspiration for Mapril is to celebrate all things Maple in the dreary time that is the end of March and hopefully the end of winter and the beginning of April and spring. My good Canadian friend to the north, Susan of 29 Black Street, still has bits of ice and snow and gray in her world. She needs some hot pink flowers and lovely maple dishes to blow those winter blahs away. For some of us, spring apparently is done and we're heading into summer. Our predicted high today is 88 degrees so hot pink sunburn may be in my future.

I had three maple dishes lined up for Mapril Dim Sum Sunday. Sadly it was not to be and I have no one to blame except myself and not trusting my own damn common sense. You see when searching the internets for inspiration and ideas, I generally use Google image to find potential recipes. Generally my theory is if a photo makes me salivate then it must be, at the very least, a decent recipe. This has worked out fairly well in the past. Bit me in ass this weekend. You see I saw a photo and ended up at this recipe. They used a quick soak method of cooking beans but only had 30 minutes of post soak cooking time. This is where I learn culinary life lessons so you don't have to. Dried beans don't cook in 30 minutes. I don't think dried beans soaked over night cook to tender in 30 minutes. I don't know how long these freaking beans took because I spent all evening with them, gently tending to their needs. I finally decided that I actually wanted to get some sleep so I dumped them into the crock pot and went to bed. This morning found them tender but all the other ingredients cooked to mush. They are ok taste-wise. I'm sad for the cup of beautiful maple syrup that boiled away in the process. I am glad to know that I should stick with the chefs, authors, and websites that I trust. People who actually know how to cook, test and write recipes for the general public. My only guess is that someone was writing a recipe for a pressure cooker version of baked beans but forgot to cook in a pressure cooker because that's the only way this recipe is so not wrong.

Still, they do make for some pretty on this hot Sunday. Guess I'm the April Fool for making this recipe. Keep visiting the comments during the day to see who else decided to get all maplely (yes I know it's not a word...).

we mapriled; but no time to post pics yet! smoked bone in chic breast with a wet rub with maple syrup in it and fresh green breans with olive oil and maple syrup in an aluminum pan on the grill...and taters with no syrup. will get the pics up asap!